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A
Response to "WHY CHURCHES IN SUDAN ARE NOT BOMBED"
In
response to Charles Carlson of “We Hold These Truths”
based in Arizona who has published numerous articles denying
the persecution in Sudan and slandering missionaries who
are serving the persecuted, we wrote this letter:
Dear
Mr Carlson
Greetings
in the precious Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Some
mutual friends forwarded me your article“Why churches
in Sudan are not bombed”. While I can only agree
that many are abusing the issues in Sudan, especially slavery,
in corrupt and disgraceful fund raising scams, I must challenge
your assertion that churches in Sudan are not being frequently
and deliberately bombed by the government of Sudan Air Force.
There
is no doubt a real need for a “Pharisee Watch”,
but you have been unfairly smearing even sincere and genuine
missions with the accusations which are, unfortunately,
pretty true for some slick marketing agencies.
Despite
your claims, Frontline Fellowship has never made use of
any paid publicity agents, or public relations firms, nor
have we even engaged in any direct fund-raising. In the
19 years of Frontline Fellowship, we have never even taken
up an offering. Not in the field, nor at our base of operations,
South Africa, nor in the US or anywhere else overseas. We
do not even have one person on our staff who raises funds.
Others may have used our photographs and stories, testimonies
and statistics in their slick marketing campaigns to raise
vast amounts of funds for their operations, but we have
never benefited from anything like that.
Unlike
some of the slick marketing scams, generally based in the
USA, that are seeking to exploit Sudan for profit, we can
be very specific about what our mission has accomplished
and what it has cost. And we have photographic evidence
for each of our deliveries and training courses.
In
the last seven years, Frontline Fellowship has delivered
and distributed over 200,000 Bibles and Christian books,
in 21 languages, throughout 14 different regions of Southern
Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. We have conducted regular
Leadership Training courses, which have succeeded in training
over 680 primary school teachers, who have established 120
primary schools, with 18,000 students. We’ve also trained
200 pastors, who are responsible for over 380 congregations.
We’ve also trained 70 chaplains and chaplain’s
assistants, and 50 medics and nurses. We’ve helped
repair, establish and stock three medical clinics, and we’ve
delivered over 12 tonnes of medical supplies to Southern
Sudan. We’ve also delivered a 4-wheel drive ambulance
to one of the only hospitals in Southern Sudan.
We’ve
also presented well over 3,000 sermons, lectures and Bibles
studies within Southern Sudan. We are one of only two Evangelical
missions with permanent mission bases inside Southern Sudan.
The other is Samaritan’s Purse, which runs the hospital
at Lui.
You
claim that any religious organisation that operates in Southern
Sudan, should also operate in Northern Sudan. But this is
a practical impossibility. Sudan is in the grip of a vicious
civil war, and the government of Sudan does not tolerate
any organisation to operate in the North that also operates
in the South. By definition, those ministries that operate
in the liberated zones of Southern Sudan, are entering Sudan
illegally, at least in the eyes of the National Islamic
Front regime in Khartoum. How then can a mission operate
safely on both sides of a civil war, in a country like Sudan?
You
state the Sudan is “a classic guerrilla war.”
Actually, it is more of a conventional war with trenches,
tanks and artillery on both sides. The “guerrillas”
control 80% of the South – including all of Western
Equatoria.
Let
me state clearly, and for the record, that neither myself
nor anyone else in Frontline Fellowship has been involved
in providing weapons to the SPLA or to any other rebels
or combatants in Sudan, or in any other conflict in Africa.
You claim that I frequently am photographed with, and associated
with John Garang, however, you’ve been misinformed.
I’ve never even met John Garang. Nor has Frontline
Fellowship delivered any money to the SPLA.
I
do not recall, at any time, referring to myself as “an
enemy of the Sudanese government”. I’m also
not sure how I can be described as a “self-appointed
Rambo”, as I’ve never referred to myself in
any such way, and never would. Nor do I understand how you
can describe me as a “financially successful mail-order
missionary”, when our mission is continually struggling
financially. You say that one of our pictures is worth a
$1,000,000. Well, maybe to someone else, but not to us.
(Our entire budget for the last 7 years doesn’t even
come close to half that amount). You claim that we have
been involved in the slave redemption programmes, but at
no time have I, or anyone else in Frontline Fellowship,
ever been involved in the placing of money in the hands
of slave traders. I regard that as unethical and counter-productive.
Because of the law of supply and demand, if there is an
increase in demand for purchasing slaves, there will be
an increase in the supply of slaves. We would rather follow
the example of William Wilberforce and David Livingstone,
who fought against the slave trade their whole lives, yet
without ever financially rewarding slave traders. I have
frequently and consistently spoken out against Slave Redemption.
No
matter how noble your motives, or how righteous your indignation
against the disgraceful conduct of all too many, you have
failed to do adequate research, and you have unjustly accused
us. In your publications you have borne false witness against
your neighbour.
I’ve
never claimed to be “the chaplain of the insurgency
army”. What I have done is train pastors and evangelists
to be chaplains in the SPLA. The training these chaplains
have received has been from our Discipleship Training Course
manuals, Biblical Worldview Seminar manuals, Evangelism
Explosion clinics, Great Commission Course manual, Muslim
Evangelism Workshop, Reformation and Revival seminar.
We
are, in no sense, “keeping the war going.”
What we have done is save lives, even the lives of captured
enemy troops, whom we have taught the chaplains to ensure
that they are well-treated and protected. We have met with
captured GOS troops and seen them receiving the best medical
treatment and good food at the hospital.
Frontline
Fellowship is a Christian mission that, for the last 19
years, has been assisting suffering Christians in Moçambique,
Angola and Sudan. Our work in these countries is a matter
of public record – which you can read for yourself
in our published books, including In the Killing Fields
of Moçambique and Faith Under Fire in Sudan,
and others. We are no “fly by night”, ‘Johnny
come lately’’, slick marketing ministry, exploiting
the tragedies of Sudan for our own ends. We have a consistent
track record, going back almost two decades – unlike
the opportunists who seek to profit from Sudan’s misery.
Nor
are we inventing or exaggerating the extent of the suffering
of Christians in Southern Sudan. Just on my last two mission
trips to Sudan, I’ve had the privilege of preaching
in the Fraser Cathedral, the birthplace of Christianity
in Southern Sudan, which was first destroyed by the government
of Sudan ground forces in 1965. Completely destroyed. It
was later rebuilt by 1983, but when the NIF government forces
swept into Lui, the congregation had to again flee into
the bush, and the church building was vandalised. In 1997,
the church was restored. In the last year, the church has
come under aerial bombardment eight times. Forty-seven bombs
being dropped around it. On 29 December 2000, it was again
bombed; one bomb blew a huge hole into the West wall of
the church building, flinging parts of the corrugated iron
roof high up into the sky. Most of the West wall is pockmarked
with holes from hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. All of the
glass windows on all sides of the church were blown out.
Most of the doors were splintered. Almost every wooden beam
on the roof of the church has cracked. This beautifully
built, brick church building was no mud hut as your article
demeaningly refers to the churches in Southern Sudan. This
was the third time that this church building will have to
be rebuilt because of government assaults.
Some
of the extensive damage done to the Fraser Cathedral,
clearly visible on this photo.
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I
also preached in the church at Kotobi, which had been
destroyed by helicopter gunships back in 1996 and
rebuilt since. This church has been bombed several
times on Sunday mornings in the last year.
I
also preached at the church in Jambo, where we were
bombed during the Sunday morning service on 5 November
– the church was subsequently bombed on Christmas
Day, during the morning service, and on January 7th,
during Sunday morning service, and several times subsequently
as well.
The
community, which includes our mission base, and the
Christian Liberty High School, has been bombed nine
times in the previous 14 months – by MIG’s
and Antonov’s.
In
your article, you use some very strange logic, starting
out with the premise that it is a “physical
impossibility” for the government of Sudan
to have bombed over 150 churches.
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You
do not give a time period for this, but proceed to use as
evidence the fact that, according to Bishop Makram Gassis
(not Max Kasis as you misspell his name), that his public
relations agent claimed that the Sudanese Air fleet consisted
only of six Antonov’s (not Antonoff, as you misspelt
them). You then proceeded to theorise that six Antonov’s
would not be sufficient: “it appears the GOS is not
even capable of purposely bombing churches in Sudan, even
if they desired to do so!” You make no mention of what
Janes Defence weekly, or any authoritative source say about
the extent of the air power available to the government
of Sudan. Why would you choose to use someone who is obviously
no authority on the military capabilities of a country,
to establish your basic premise?
You
also make no mention of the MI-24 helicopter gunships or
MIG 23’s, which our missionaries have personally come
under attack from. We have vast amounts of photographic
documentation, including
on video, of unexploded, 250-pound and 500-pound bombs,
steel bombs – with tail fins, yet you claim that the
only bombs used are “very crude barrel bombs”,
and apparently, in contradiction “anti-personnel fragmentation
weapons” which, by the way, can all be very deadly.
You
ignore the deadly toll which these bombs are taking upon
the civilian population of Sudan, which I have seen and
documented with photographic and video footage. You compare
the chances of hitting a church with one of these bombs
to making a hole in one with a golf ball from a back of
a moving truck! The fact is that bombs don’t need to
make a “hole in one”, in order to kill people.
In fact, people have been killed up to 80 yards, or more,
away from the point of detonation of even a 250-pound bomb.
I
had a 500-pound bomb explode 17 yards from me. You trivialise
this experience in your article, but the fact is that we
were pummelled and buried by the huge amount of debris thrown
up by this explosion, and the trees and ground around us
was littered and pock-marked with shrapnel. It is only God’s
grace that many of us were not killed that day. Eight bombs
were dropped all within 100 yards of the church.
Upon
reflection, your article “Why churches in Sudan
are not bombed”, is not based on any facts, just
presumptions and convoluted logic. You have ignored the
hard evidence and rather built your article upon ill-informed
quotes by ignorant individuals, and upon prejudice and unbalanced,
dogmatic assertions.
If
you are seriously interested in what is going on in Sudan,
we will gladly take you in and show you personally. Or,
if you prefer, we can provide you with documentation –
both written and photographic, to prove that there is deliberate
and systematic bombing of churches, schools and hospitals,
by the government of Sudan Air Force.
May
the Lord lead you into all truth, and may He bless you body,
mind and spirit, as you seek to stand up for what is right
and expose what is wrong.
Yours
for Faith and Freedom.
Dr.
Peter Hammond
Related Resources:-
Terrorism
and Persecution (video)
Sudan,
the Hidden Holocaust (video)
Faith under
Fire in Sudan (book)
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